


are you sure you’re going to be ok?

by ikmkr



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hinata Hajime & Kamukura Izuru Are Separate People, Hinata Hajime & Kamukura Izuru Previously Shared A Body, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Kamukura Izuru Has Feelings, M/M, Moving In Together, Moving On, Neurodivergent Kamukura Izuru, Old Married Couple, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Young Love, first-person, past/implied abuse, past/implied sexual assault, past/implied trauma, the remnants of despair have ptsd, told from izuru’s perspective, ventfic, venting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 02:11:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19843399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikmkr/pseuds/ikmkr
Summary: that gets asked way too many times.





	are you sure you’re going to be ok?

**Author's Note:**

> i address the shsl impostor as sagishi in this. beginning note full stop.

_“are you sure you’re going to be ok?”_

He did not mean any harm with it. Of course he did not. That is what I assumed, anyways, and my assumptions tended to be right quite often.

It was a question almost murmured to me, just before we were leaving. I did not know if I’d see Makoto Naegi again. He would still be _checking in on me,_ as per our arrangement, _~~the arrangement that allowed me to actually leave his custody with everyone else~~ , _but I did not know if I would see him.

The thought occurred suddenly that I would miss him.

He was dreadfully ordinary. Boring, even. 

There was something different about him, though. Unreasonable optimism. I would call it foolishness, but still, special. Maybe he had it in a quantity that most humans did not. Maybe he had hope.

I had noted, once, that hope was predictable, but over time I had realized that what they called _hope_ had constraints imposed by those that defined it. _That_ hope was not hope, more like... a tool, a false serenity, a means for subjugation, for order. They had created me to embody that; a tool that could perfectly follow rules, obey commands.

**~~a doll that could take it~~ **

_stop that._

True hope didn’t have constraints. It was wild and uncontrollable. It was the reckless, foolish belief that if someone tries hard enough, they can make it in the end.

Maybe this was making it. Maybe Naegi and cohorts were right.

It was foolish, and the dreams of a child, and predictable. Naïveté, surely.

I want to believe that I was still right in believing it.

I banished the thought. I had not answered the previous question, and Naegi’s expression appeared to grow more concerned every moment I refrained from replying. It was a predictable behavior. People act so uptight and alarmed every time things do not fall into their qualification of “okay.”

_”are you sure you’re going to be okay?”_

Was I? It was a heavy question, one that was difficult to answer, even with deep introspection. Could someone who witnessed the destruction I witnessed, experienced the terror I experienced, and committed the horror I had committed _be_ okay? I doubted it. The human psyche is a fragile thing, and even the most mentally fortified of the survivors did not manage to evade the shadows of their trauma, me included. Coldly examining this fact would not erase that I was scarred as well, and my behavior during that time did not help my scenario much. Fear was with me too, waiting for my armor to break to drag me back into the depths of irrationality.

However, Naegi did not need to know that; I could answer that question another day. I painted my face with the expression that said _I’m fine_ , and repeated my rehearsed response to questions like that.

”I will be fine. There is no need to worry,” I lied.

Naegi believed me, of course, as anyone would; I excelled in anything I did, and lying was no exception. The storm in his countenance cleared like the sun coming out after rain, returning it to its normally overtly cheerful **~~façade~~** appearance. “That’s good to hear, Izuru,” he reassured. “Don’t hesitate to call me if something goes wrong.”

 _I won’t be doing that_ , my traitorous, angry brain chimed in, _but thank you anyways._

I never said that out loud. There was no need.

* * *

_”are you sure you’re going to be okay?”_

He’d said it while we were on one of our walks. We often went for walks together— they had assigned him as my caretaker— around the town we’d moved into, and he would check up on me. It was either that, or another, more invasive alternative, such as him living in my home with me, so I reluctantly sucked it up. Truth be told, he was not as boring as the rest of them (they weren’t as boring as the rest of the people on this planet, my class, but in comparison to him, they were fairly boring), but maybe it was just me missing talking to him while I was still in his head. Whatever reason why, I started to enjoy those walks. 

Not this one, though.

He’d accidentally caused it. Maybe he had let something slip, or misspoke, or I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I cannot remember the trigger exactly. All I knew is that before I knew it the conversation and my mind’s intricate spiraling paths of thought suddenly dissolved into **fear fear and the memories and my head spins and i remember the terror and the screaming and the pain and now i cannot breathe and i cannot talk—**

He had put a hand on my shoulder to reassure me and I threw him. I did not actively choose to throw him, my reflexes kicking in as my mind screamed at me and **i need him off i need it to go away please no more contact no more touching please no more hands please no stop please**

_snap out of it_

**please no i can’t i can’t i can’t no more please no why am i treated like this why won’t they let me go it hurts and i don’t want this and it’s fuzzy and why why why why why**

_YOU ARE HURTING HINATA HAJIME, IZURU KAMUKURA._

**what nononononono i would never iiii what have i**

He was lying a few feet away. He got to his feet then, only assuaging a few of my fears that **i’d killed him i killed him oh god oh god i killed another one i killed him i**

He held up his hands in defeat, baring himself to me defenseless. My vision was tunneled, the edges of my periphery fading away and **oh god i cannot see i cannot see i cannot breathe please no more please**

_you are such an unreliable narrator_

i was scared.

Quietly, he shushed me. He approached slowly, and I trembled and shook. He got as close as I would allow, and held his arms open for me, inviting a hug, and I accepted it, breathing in his scent through his polo. He smelled like chestnuts, tropical fruit and fire, incredibly, relievingly, overwhelmingly organic. I smelled like **antiseptic and soap and chemicals and fresh linen and death**

_stop it._

“You’re not back there. You’re not there,” he murmured, carding his fingers through my hair. We were the same height, but he was stockier somehow, despite I being more physically fit than him. It was comforting. He felt larger, warmer, safer. “You’re right here. You’re outside. You’re outside. You’re with friends. You’re safe.”

My breathing— laboured, restless, haggard, wild— slowed at the comfort, my trembling subsiding. I gasped in air, refilling my tired lungs with a true deep breath, a melting toffee in the sun. Hajime relaxed, and I felt the minute shift in his stance as the tense in his muscles dissipated. After a while, I felt the fear wash away, and I became docile once more, the cornered animal that lived in my head finally resting for another day.

He lifted my face, still not tear stained (it’d take more than that for me to cry), to face him, and I caught his eyes. They appeared to be nothing short of kind, gaze soft, something that looked like compassion to me in his gaze. I sighed, feeling a little more at ease.

”Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked, voice sounding concerned.

My voice finally broke free of the shackles of the selective mutism that came alongside my fear, if only for a minute, coming out cracked and broken, a whisper. “...yes,” I murmured, the syllable alone an effort to stutter. “...I... will be fine.”

”There’s no need to talk,” he reassured me, his arm wrapping around my side, steadying me. “If you don’t want to say anything else, I can just talk to you instead. Does that sound ok?”

I nodded, eyes tracing the stitches on my shoes. Subtle, but machine-done. My shoes maybe had a year or two of regular use left until the soles fell off. I should get them replaced.

”Alright,” he noted. “Can I tell you about that blind date I went on? It was fucking disastrous...”

* * *

Sagishi had said it the day we moved in to the house together. We’d finally gotten serious, you and I, and Sagishi had come over to housewarm us ~~_(and who better a person to warm house than the man who carried me to bed all those times when I’d be hurt by her hand, cleaned my wounds and my skin of the marks and blood and fluids, would bathe me and dress me, wrap me up in blankets, give me a glass of milk and brush my hair??)_~~ and check out the place. He’d sat on the soft mocha velvet couch, impersonating Togami today (he seemed to really, really like impersonating Togami), his white suit sinking into the fabric. You and I had sat on the fireplace, the cold granite chilling our legs, but we’d never let our Sagishi (or anyone else, for the matter) sit on the floor while we sat in a chair, especially as a guest.

We’d taken him on a tour of the house together, you and I, and while we walked through the halls, you laughing and I smiling appreciatively, I had snuck stuff I forgot to put away onto shelves. We showed him the kitchen, with all of my workspace, the raised area providing a perfect view of our cosy little living room; the living room in question, sunken into the ground by maybe six inches, comfortable tan carpeting squishing between our toes; the master bedroom, with the red sheets, dark wood and maroon walls; the bathroom, with the porcelain bathtub and shower, and the sea-green walls; the recreation room, with all of the games we had bought; nagito’s office, with his greenhouse in a glass-paned area; my workspace, with the absolute hellscape of my tools and belongings, the giant bookshelf spanning a whole wall; everywhere there was a room, we took him. Sagishi nodded in apparent approval at everything, making comments about my interior design choices as he went. Eventually we found our way to the front of the house again.

We had dinner. I cooked, as to be expected. I made spaghetti. Sagishi ate, too, and jokingly commented that it rivaled Hanamura’s cooking. I almost laughed that time. My cooking _always_ rivaled Hanamura’s. I think that was humorous to me.

With due time, dinner was completed. You and I cleaned dishes, and Sagishi sat on our couch again. When we were done, Sagishi called us over to him.

He stood up, and walked towards us. “Ryota and I decided to give you gifts, since you two finally made that big step and got a place together,” he explained. “He helped design these.” He pressed something into your hands, and when you looked at it, you smiled. “They’re two figures of the both of you, to put on your mantle. If you get a pet, or possibly adopt a child, just tell us and we’ll get you more.”

You’d looked at him. You seemed incredibly touched. You’d thanked him, breathlessly, in that gratifying, worshipping tone of yours, which despite how much better you had gotten, still didn’t seem to fade away. He’d smiled at you with an expression you could only label as benign, and had turned to me.

He pressed my figure into my hands. I’d only had a second to glance (it was beautiful) before he’d gotten close to me, and gestured me to step away for a second, clearly wanting me to talk to him away from you. Knowing he meant me no harm, I followed him, just a few steps back into the kitchen.

” _Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”_ he muttered, just out of your earshot.

”What do you mean?”

”You know. With this whole thing.” He gestured to our house, to _you_ , with an indecipherable expression. 

“Why?” I was perplexed, even hurt.

”Well,” he started, like a worried parent would be with a child, “I know how you are with intimacy and all. I just want to make sure you’re ok with this before I leave you with. _him_ and everything. I mean you’ve been together for a couple years now, and I know you both are healthier now, but—“

He was still worried about _back then_ , I supposed.

”’Gishi,” I interrupted, “I am _fine_. With this. _All of it_ , ‘Gishi. I love him. I _want_ this.”

”I’m just making sure you are.”

”I know you are.” I leaned in to give him a hug. “You are worried about me, and with my history, it is natural. Better you do care than otherwise.”

He chuckled. “You’re right. You’ll be fine.”

He let go of me, and, holding me by the forearms, looked me up and down. “Look at you, Kamukura. Getting a house. I’m so proud of you.”

I genuinely beamed at that, the muscles in my face sore from underuse. “Thank you, Sagishi.”

It was quiet, a tentative, delicate pause.

_”Oh, and if it makes you feel better, we have not had any intercourse yet.”_

_”I didn’t need to know about your sex life, but sure—“_

* * *

I’d gotten sick.

I’d come down with a fever of 104, and you were never any good at taking care of the ill. You couldn’t do it alone, even with me giving instructions. I was frail, feverish and **warm, and too warm too warm too sweaty make it stop please no more i feel so hot and so**

So you’d called Mikan Tsumiki. Mikan was a very welcome face at the time, our friend talented with nursing, so it erased my need to speak or give too many instructions. While you got me simple meals and water from the fridge, things you couldn’t ruin, Mikan was busy tending to my illness.

At first I think it was fine **despite the oppressing, intense heat and the need and it’s too warm and i need it gone and i cannot move and i think i need i want it to stop ineeditgone**. I had another friend in the house with me, one who arguably understood and shared my past ( _though not to the same extent_ ), and could help me out of this situation I had landed myself in. Less boredom for bedridden me, which was a welcome thing.

Then my awareness began to restore itself. My body mended quickly, and once I started to heal, I started noticing things. Like how things weren’t done nearly as efficiently as if I were to do them. And how confining the bed was. And how my thoughts felt like static. And how Mikan kept insisting I should take medicine.

And the antiseptic smell.

**Wherewasitcomingfrom**

I couldn’t place it. I couldn’t place the scent. It scared me. I **didn’t like it. I didn’t like it i didn’t i didn’t i didn’t idon’tlikethatiwantitgone.pleasemakeitgoaway**

**i can’ti can’t i can’t**

**i can’t**

I told her to leave. You came in looking alarmed to the sound of Mikan’s stammering voice, insisting it was necessary that i had help. I begged her to leave. My voice ached and cracked with each word, but I begged. I begged like my stupid life depended on it. I felt like it did, if anything.

You had watched impassively. I supposed you did not know what to do. On one hand, she was right, and I was obscenely stubborn. On the other hand, I needed it. all of **it gone. i need it gone**

She gave up eventually. She looked absurdly downcast. I do not know why she was so upset. There were many other sick people out there.

She got up and packed up her stuff. Before she left the room, she stopped at the door. _“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”_

I nodded weakly. “I’ll be fine.”

She looked out of place here, all of her clinicalness in my warm house.

“I am sorry. I did not mean it personally against you. I was just scared.”

”I know. I know you were.” 

She slammed the door hard when she left. I could hear it from my room.

* * *

Charlotte and Magadelene had invited me over to their house many a time. The old couple were both incredibly gracious to me, the old women often making me tea and doting over my hair, my clothing or simply my well-being whenever they saw fit. Eventually, with no pressuring from them, I decided to be honest with them about my past.

I explained all of it. The lab, and the torture I went through, Enoshima and the awful, awful things she did to me, the people who I seduced and subdued during despair, the simulation, all of it. Every little bit, and answered all of the questions the two old women asked. And after it was done, I cried.

I could feel the ghosts pf my past howling at me in my head, screaming for retribution.

I cried for them.

The two women took me into their arms. It was moments like this where I could appreciate the subtle differences between Charlotte and Magadelene; Charlie was softer, and Mags had a stronger grip, but they both smelled like sage, cinnamon and fresh-cut flowers and they were both extremely comforting to hug. I sobbed in their grip; it was ugly, wet, and possibly full of snot, but i sobbed, the couple rubbing my back and squeezing their shoulders as my dark hair spilled over the two ladies’ laps. It was ugly, but I sobbed.

All things come to an end. My crying did, too. It was raw and it hurt but when it subsided into hiccups it felt like I dumped a massive weight on my chest. I hiccuped and hiccuped and Mags got off the couch only to return minutes later with a fleece blanket and a cup of instant hot chocolate for me, her long hoop earrings and jewelry clanking together as she returned, Charlie shooting her a smile that I bet she thought I did not notice. I hiccuped and gratefully took the warm drink from Mags’ hands, and drank, soothing my throat, raw from crying.

They continued to rub my back, and I looked up at them, bleary-eyed and exhausted, beckoning them to hug me. They did, and I relaxed into their warmth, docile once again. They looked at me with something that looked like pity to me, but I did not mind it much. They were my rock in that moment, something solid to grip on.

I finally sat up again. 

“Are you ok?” Mags asked, in her rasping, quiet voice.

”Yeah, I am fine,” I replied, voice shot and quiet.

”Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” Charlie pressed.

I thought about it. I felt lighter. Truth be told, I felt like I had removed a massive weight from my chest.

So I was honest. 

“Yes, I think I will be quite alright for a very long time.”

* * *

........

* * *

I have been asked that question a lot. I hope you know this. I know telling you all of these stories is unnecessary, but the amount of times I have been asked it is also quite frankly the most unnecessary thing I have ever experienced.

You are hesitating. I know you are. You’re remembering all of the horrors I have experienced, all of the ways people have hurt me, and you don’t want to be one of those people to hurt me in that way. Even when we are like this, lying together, making love for the first time, bared to each other, you are afraid to hurt me. And I understand that.

Please, please, remember, Clover, I want this. I want _you_. _I love you_ , and if I did not, I would not have let you get this far. We have the precautions set up that we need, and if I get uncomfortable, you bet that I will let you know. You will do just fine. And quite frankly, even if you didn’t do just fine (no matter how improbable that is to happen), I will love you either way. 

You are special to me, Clover. You’re the most special person in my life. You mean everything to me. 

So to answer that question, “are you sure you’re going to be alright?”

Yes. I am very sure, Nagito. I am going to be alright. 

I love you.

Now please hurry and move. Sitting here like this is going to get very boring very quickly.

* * *

_end <3_

**Author's Note:**

> shoutout to those of you who noticed the subtlest part of the description: the fact that the narrator explicitly describes the emotions of others as “appears to be” or “looks like”
> 
> basically he has no clue what the fuck anyone is feeling and judges others’ emotions by external cues like an idiot
> 
> also the whole time he’s trying to convince the person that he’s having sex with that he’s alright
> 
> post fic


End file.
